and jason giambi has been better than average for four years in a row. but gleeman's not all bad. he made a nice observation about kevin brown (groundball pitcher + horrible infield = era explosion), and the column before that is a good take on the smoltz/eckersley comparison. he underrates their difference as starters, though.
- posted by julien @
2:30 PM(0) comments

Gary Sheffield told Yankees GM Brian Cashman that he'd be willing to move to third base to replace the injured Aaron Boone.

This isn't going to happen. Sheffield hasn't been a regular third baseman since 1992 and he was moved off the position for a very good reason. Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution

by the win shares system, sheff was the second-best fielding third-baseman in the national league in 1992, with 5.74 win shares in 1247.2 innings. terry pendleton had 6.26 win shares in 1389.0 innings. those of you who have the lightning calculator advantage have already figured out that sheff had more win shares per 1000 innings: 4.60 to 4.51. tim wallach had 6.09 ws/1000, but he only played 700.2 innings. you know what, from now on, i'm gonna call that 700.7 innings. i refuse to use a number system that switches from base 10 to base 3 at the decimal point. unless it takes a lot of work. i refuse to do a lot of work.

actually, it wouldn't be a decimal point, would it? it would be a decimal/tricycle point, or something.

getting back to the subject at hand, clay davenport has mr sheffield at 25 runs above replacement in 1992. as fun as it is to bash rotoworld, i must admit that he was terrible the other years. i take consolation: 1992 was not sheff's last year at third. 1993 was.

did we learn anything here? i'm gonna say yes.

no, kidding aside, this is an excellent illustration: defense is not only the most difficult thing to measure, but also the most variable. why? the data come entirely from balls in play. do not taunt happy fun ball.

do you wanna get . . . high?
i was hoping someone would ask about this:

Hi Julien,

Happened across your website on a search. I've just started to dive into baseball stats, so I'm still a rookie. I saw one think on your page that I couldn't figure out though, and I'd appreciate any insight you could provide. You said that Coors field did more for OBP than SLG. Now, keep in mind that I don't know that much about baseball stats yet, but it would seem to me that it would be the opposite. I haven't checked MLB.COM stat section yet, but don't more HRs and xtra base hits happen at Coors? It would seem to me that that would bolster SLG numbers, as OBP is raised by walks and such...which Coors doesn't have any bearing on. Any response from you would be cool, as you obviously know a heck of a lot more about the subject then me. Thanks!

many of you (ok, one or two of you) probably wrote my off as a crackpot. fortunately, the other person who red the post decided to ask why. so now i have an opportunity to defend myself. let's see if i can do it.

first off, let's specify what we mean by "more of an effect". slg has more variance than obp, so it may seem like it's changing more when it's not. let's think about it this way: how much does a replacement player's slg have to change to put him in the top 20 (say)?

there are 254 regular hitter positions in the major leagues, but only 164 qualified for the batting title. ok forget this replacement player stuff. let's just say "what's the difference between the 100th-best player and the 20th-best player?" the 100th best ops is wes helms, at .261/.330/.450. that's not important, though. let's do a table.

stat 100thbest 20thbest diff
obp .339 .396 .057
slg .440 .541 .101

before we get too into this, phil, let me respond to your specific claim, viz: ". . . obp is raised by walks and such . . . which coors doesn't have any bearing on." one of the early things you'll notice when you start getting into park effects is that different parks do have a different effect on walks, and even such things as stolen bases, which is really counterintuitive. coors field has the most extreme walk effects in the majors, in fact. in my jan 14 article, i observe that rockies hitters had 329 bb and 2749 ab at home in 2003, 290/2769 on the road. those approximate to wal's of .107 and .095.

it's not walks, though, that cause the increase in obp. it's hits. let's get back to our table. i think it's fair to say that slg has a variance of about twice that of obp. that's michael young at # 100 (obp), followed by his teammate alex rodriguez at #20. the major league leader was barry bonds, at .529. that's why we use #20 instead of #1. second place was todd helton at .458, and then another drop to the best non-altitude obp by a mortal, which was albert pujols' .439. using these numbers makes everything screwy.

in slg, we had carlos pena at #100, garrett anderson at #20. barry bonds is the leader, at .749, followed by that pujols guy (.667) and that helton guy (.630). blah blah blah.

first of all, look at how terrible the rockies hitters are on the road. now let's talk business. the difference between home and road obp's is .056. the difference in slg's is .115. that's almost exactly twice, which equals our variance.

so i barely avoided an outright lie. but what's amazing is how close to truth i was. people talk and talk about the home runs, and to a lesser extent the doubles, but what they leave out is the pure volume of hits. look at those batting averages. on the road, rockies hitters were terrible in 2003. and they were great at home. half of the slugging increase comes from batting average alone.

here's the other thing: if you were to say the effect on run scoring at coors field is more due to obp than slg, you would be 100% correct. why? because obp is more important than slg. about twice as important, in fact. so the coors funhouse effect is twice as much dependent on obp than slg. more, even, because as obp increases, its importance increases. think about it: if you have an obp of 1.000, it doesn't matter what your slg is: you score an infinite number of runs. so colorado is actually more than twice as much due to obp than slg.

this is really really surprising, and it shows that the rockies have no idea how to win at altitude. here is what i was trying to get at with my bold statement: that the colorado run explosion is not due to the increase in power, it's due to the increase in contact. obviously it's both, but it's more contact. what the rockies do is acquire people who already make contact, thinking the power increase will help them the most. but these are the players who are helped the least. the rockies current strategy is the worst possible strategy they could have. that's what that means. the players they should be acquiring are people who have trouble with contact. people like preson wilson. right, they did acquire him. good move. another good move is jeromy burnitz. hear me now and believe me later.

maybe the rocks are finally catching on. but they sign people like vinny castilla, who already makes good contact, and royce clayton. you know, royce might work out:

his contact is worse than i thought, and his power is just enough that he might be helped. there's a certain threshold below which coors cannot help you. juan pierre was not helped. he's a slap-and-run hitter, and his contact cannot improve:

what the rockies should do is agressively pursue high-wal, low-con, high-pow guys, like adam dunn. for more on contact and coors, see my jan 14 article, which i link for the third time here. also, you should know that pitchers are way different, for reasons i may get into later, but suffice it to say that the rockies want people as much like curt schilling as they can find. for now, i bury you with numbers.

what i'm trying to do
what i'm trying to do here is cure people of the idea that they need "experts" to tell them about baseball. baseball is like anything else: you figure it out by thinking. luckily, thinking is your species' strong suit. unless you're an ape. if you are, drop me a line, cause i wanna meet the only ape who can read!
- posted by julien @
4:17 PM(0) comments

it's nothing personal . . . i attack everyone.alan schwarz wrote this article at a third grade level and i decided to make fun of it. no disrespect to third-graders. the title is "whip it good . . . statistically."

By Alan Schwarz
Special to ESPN.com

Yes, we know. When you talk about statistics, you can't find one more important than team wins. But when you get right down to it, wins are the destination. The trick is knowing what statistical roads lead to them most directly. That's where it gets interesting.

Every executive has his own allegiances, whether to on-base percentage (Billy Beane),

RBI (Omar Minaya) or opponents' batting average (Joe Garagiola Jr.). And every statistical analyst, from Pete Palmer to Bill James to the folks at Baseball Prospectus, has spent hundreds of hours coming up with measures beyond the traditional. This is my encapsulation, after consulting with both front-office personnel and sabermetricians, of the statistics that matter most in the game today. There are two important considerations before we start:

1) By "matter," we mean vital to the people evaluating talent, whether they be executives, fans or media. Each group has its own considerations, because ...

2) There are two kinds of baseball statistics -- those that evaluate what has happened, and those that evaluate what will happen. They are vastly different, and confusing one for the other leads to disaster. For example, if someone has a
fantastic batting average with runners in scoring position, he was most assuredly valuable. Writers and fans will cast him as a hero. Studies show, however, that his GM had better not count on him being so clutch again next year.

ooooooooh! studies!

thems must be science-ticians!

On the other side of the coin, while GM's look for good strikeout rates in pitchers in projecting toward the future, other stats tell more about present effectiveness.

We will look at reasonably mainstream statistics only. (Though they are quite interesting and valuable, statistics such as Bill James' Win Shares and Clay Davenport's Equivalent Average remain too esoteric for the masses.) For context, after each one I have listed the 2003 leader in the category and last year's average for regular players -- defined as the 165 hitters and 92 pitchers who qualified for the batting title.

this is an almost useless article because it completely ignores the idea that different statistical measures can be combined for a complete picture. instead it compares apples and oranges to see which is "best".

1. OPS
2003 Leader: Barry Bonds, 1.278.
2003 Regular Average: .810.

No modern statistic has inspired more allegiance than OPS. Adding a player's on-base percentage and slugging percentage gives you a very simple and accurate appraisal of his skills in both key areas of offense: getting on base and advancing runners. First tried by Branch Rickey and his Brooklyn Dodgers statistician, Allan Roth -- who didn't quite use slugging percentage but we'll cut them some slack -- OPS got its big break in May 1984 when, after Pete Palmer and John Thorn wrote "The Hidden Game of Baseball," The New York Times ran weekly charts of baseball's OPS leaders. Multiplying on-base and slugging percentages actually is more accurate,

actually, the accuracy of an arithmetic calculation depends on the person doing the calculating. the "computer", if you will.

but the ease of adding them allowed the public -- and even baseball executives -- to catch on to the power of non-traditional statistics.

ops has the problem that it counts batting average twice. batting average requires a huge sample size to accrue meaning, so huge that by the time you have it, the player's skills have changed.

so the predictive value of ops is nil. but it is a pretty good quick-and-dirty performance measure. having wrote that sentence, i must admit that i don't believe it. i'd rather see obp and slg separately. actually, for performance, show me avg/obp/slg and i'm reasonably content.

having written that sentence, i must admit that i didn't use the perfect passive particle properly. luckily, we no longer speak latin. or unluckily. latin is an elegant, practical language.

actually, give me one, and i'll take whip. . . . they're both horrible, because they include hits, but at least whip measures something. ops has randomness from so many places that you can't tell anything from it. it's a statistical tower of babylon. i am so literary. i'm writin fuckin literature over here.

but WHIP is more common and available, having hit the mainstream when it was included as one of the eight statistics used in Dan Okrent's original 1980 Rotisserie League. WHIP does a good job at looking past a pitcher's wins, and even ERA, to see how effective he truly was.

wow! we should use this for other things, like politicians!

As for predicting his future effectiveness, other statistics (see No. 6 below) must be taken into account as well.

whip is most affected by control, defense, and luck. its value comes from the extent to which it approximates k/9 and k/bb.

In general, it doesn't matter much if a team's pitching is stronger than its offense, or plays in a good hitters' or pitchers' park. No matter how you do it, outscoring your opponents by, say, 800 runs to 750 over the course of 162 games should -- after applying what Bill James called his Pythagorean formula, though actual translations can vary -- leave you with a record of about 86-76. The power of this approach lies in comparing the expected won-lost record with what actually happened.

or you could just look at what actually happened.

A team that overperforms compared to its expected W-L was probably lucky to some extent and is a strong candidate(assuming the same roster) to slip the following year. Conversely, an actual W-L poorer than expected portends future improvement. Looking at run differentials shows that last year's Braves and Phillies were probably closer in talent than their records showed. The 101-61 Braves had a differential that translated to an expected 97-65 record, while the 86-76 Phillies "should" have gone 91-71 -- just six games worse rather than 15. Whether due to bad luck or bad managing by Larry Bowa, the Phillies had every reason to expect a closer race in 2004, even before their trades for Billy Wagner and Eric Milton.

the pythagorean method is a great, useful tool invented by bill james that, like most james inventions, has been completely overused and blown out of proportion. it may be the single biggest problem in sabermetrics today.

i sum up its limitations: everybody knows that a great closer helps you win a lot of games. but to the pythagorean method, the ninth inning of a close game is no different from the fifth inning of a blowout.

we know there's a problem here but sabermetricians say there isn't. guess what, folks: that's an assumption. and they base all kinds of labrynthine calculations on it.

it's assumptions what kill science.

bill james, by the way, does not overuse his inventions. his current reliever valuation includes a "close game" factor.

Don't worry, you don't have to figure the expected records yourself -- for full 2003 "Pythagorean" standings, click here.

but among the pool of official MLB statistics, on-base percentage ranks as the most important. Extra bases are vital, but a lineup that preserves its outs and tires pitchers faster by taking pitches is even more deadly. A high OBP shows just how much batters such as Brian Giles contribute to the offense, and a low one (particularly for a young hitter) can be a warning signal that some work on strike recognition is necessary, or else pitchers could very well figure him out.

Just as above, looking at SLG without OBP is like subsisting on food without water. Both are necessary. Slugging percentage gains some greater importance during high offensive eras, like the one we're in now, as runs are slightly easier to come by before the out clock runs out. You can look past a low SLG for a lineup's No. 1 or No. 2 hitter, because his primary role is to get on base, but the 3-7 batters must be able to do more than play station-to-station ball. One warning: Slugging percentage is more vulnerable than OBP to the batter's home ballpark dimensions.

dimensions, sure, but total park effects, i don't know. coors field, for example, has more of an effect on obp than slg. that's about the most surprising counterexample possible.

the other thing he said is wrong, too. for an example of a team that scored a lot of runs playing station-to-station ball, look at the 1998 yankees.

Otherwise known as strikeouts per nine innings, one must look at this statistic to predict a pitcher's future performance (particularly young ones) with any confidence. It can be a great measure of what scouts call "stuff" -- the ability to make batters swing and miss, which is vital for all pitchers but the freaks like Jamie Moyer.

no, he needs strikeouts, too. but if you're left-handed and pitch in safeco, you don't need as much.

Perfect example: Remember Allan Anderson, the 24-year-old lefty who won the American League ERA title in 1988 at 2.45? He struck out just 83 batters in 202 innings, or a paltry 3.70 per nine innings, which indicated that he didn't have great stuff, and that batters would soon catch up to him. That they did; Anderson was out of the majors four years later.

Bill James helped pull the curtain on these types of pitchers in the early 1980s, and the future executives who read him --

read: red.

and now populate front offices around the majors, especially in Boston -- use the statistic regularly in evaluating talent.

bill james, for example, is a boston executive.

7. Earned-run average

never heard of it.

2003 Leader: Pedro Martinez, 2.22.
2003 Regular Average: 4.09.

ERA is a perfect example of the past vs. future debate. It falls short in predicting which starter will pitch best, but in terms of citing who has pitched best, it's as important as conventional statistics tend to get. It certainly beats won-lost record, which is far too dependent on a pitcher's run support and the performance of the bullpen that follows him. ERA requires you to still take the pitcher's home park into account -- as well as any oddly small or large totals of unearned runs -- but his charge is to give up few runs, period. If he succeeds at that, he has done his job.

Even Henry Chadwick, the 19th century father of baseball statistics, knew that putouts, assists and errors by themselves are a horrible way to judge fielding. Errors don't measure how many plays a fielder successfully makes; fielding percentage doesn't measure plays per game; and plays per game, which Bill James called Range Factor but was first proposed by Chadwick, doesn't account for groundball and flyball pitchers, or where the fielder was positioned before the ball was hit. Cats have a better chance of catching their tails. Team defense is a different matter, though. The object of the defense as a whole is to turn balls hit into the field of play into outs. The rate at which a team has done that is called its Defensive Efficiency.

my cat could catch her tail. then she would bite it. then she would stop.

By that measure, Seattle -- with great thanks to Bret Boone at second base, and Randy Winn, Mike Cameron and Ichiro Suzuki across Safeco Field's large outfield -- ranked best in baseball at .731. While many cite St. Louis as having a great defense because of their several Gold Glovers (Scott Rolen, Edgar Renteria, Jim Edmonds ...), the Cardinals finished a surprising 11th at .712.

"it has long been my observation---informal, not suported by research---that when a team has a fast outfield, they tend to have a good defensive efficiency record. . . . it is not illogical to argue that certain markers of defensive excellence may be tied to certain positions. if a team allows few stolen bases, we assume that they have good defensive catchers. if a team turns double plays, we credit this to the shortstops and second basemen. it is equally reasonable, when a team has a high der, to associate this more with one defensive postition than with another."

---bill james, win shares

Many studies over the last three decades have suggested that defense is less important than many people think, because the difference between the best and worst teams amounts to no more than about one play per game.

there are 27 outs per team in a nine-inning game. you cannot change that.

better teams actually tend to make fewer plays per game, because they have better pitchers, and better pitchers get more strikeouts, which means less plays in the field.

But if you want to know which team's pitchers are getting the best glove support, Defensive Efficiency is a great place to start.

Alan Schwarz is the Senior Writer of Baseball America and a regular contributor to ESPN.com. His first book, "The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination With Statistics," will be published by St. Martin's Press in July.

schilling has greatly reduced his home runs allowed, from 37 in 2001 (256.2 ip) to 29 in 2002 (259.1 ip) to 17 in 2003. look at those innings and 2003's 168.0 and you'll say "obv" but it wasn't a shoulder or elbow he hurt it was a comebacker to the hand. so he should be fine in 2004. and that's what we're talking about: 2004.

halladay is a freak. look at those innings! it's cause he throws so few pitches to each batter. and his home run rates are almost as low as pedro's! schmidt gets penalized for pitching in the most difficult park to homer in for those not named barry bonds. i overstate my case. safeco is probably harder. detroit. los angeles, san diego, and shea are probably about as hard. vazquez gets credit for pitching 4 games in hiram bithorn stadium. that doesn't sound like much, but it's one-fourth of his home starts, and hiram bithorn was the most extreme home run park in the majors in 2003.

there are four pitchers who didn't qualify, but should definitely be in the discussion. 3 are young and one is old:

roy oswalt had groin problems last year. if he's healthy, he's a top 10 candidate. but that's a big if. he was brilliant in 2002, allowing only 17 hr in 233.0 ip, in the park formerly known as home run field.

we've all heard of josh beckett. he was the hero of the world series, the david who killed goliath slinging stones. how good is he really? this kid is for real. he probably belongs in the 7--9 range already. and he's 23.

shannon stewart got the credit, but the man responsible for the twins' second-half surge was johan santana. he's 24, and he's left-handed. in 2002, he struck out 11.38 per 9. some of that comes from his partial use as a reliever, but he'll almost certainly be a top 10. looks like we've pushed out some yankees, and possibly a giant:

correct for park and era, and randy johnson is sandy koufax. i'm not kidding. he's not retiring, though, so he's breaking the pattern. if his body holds together, he could finish as high as #1. expect a top 10 performance.

there's a new crop of young fireballers, and they're taking over. mark prior is the youngest and strongest. vazquez, 27, wood, 26, and halladay, 26, are established as dominators. following them are oswalt, 26, webb, 24, santana, 24, and beckett, 23. the new era of the pitcher is nigh.
- posted by julien @
2:22 AM(0) comments

Monday, January 19, 2004

ultimate prior post
there has been an infinitessimal email response to my previous post, so i thought i'd clear things up a bit:

pedro is still the best per inning starting pitcher. the problem is he don't get enough innings. he's always got some nagging problem with some muscle or ligament somewhere that cause him to miss a few starts. why is prior better than schilling? home runs. hell, this'll be fun: let's rank the major-league starting pitchers.

why g/f? it is better to get groundballs than flyballs, but most of that value comes from reducing home runs. so far, we've left out freddy garcia, bartolo colon, russ ortiz, matt morris, mark mulder, tim hudson, and barry zito. we're not worried.

let's pare this down to 20, rearranging based on the stats we've listed:

theories are like opinions.
here are the pitching numbers that i alluded to in my penultimate prior post. perfect past post. i have posted past perfect.

yeah: .071 wal .846 con .045 hrp at home .097 wal .861 con .034 hrp on the road. hrp is home run percentage.

that's what i'm sayin! these numbers are crazy! why are these numbers so crazy? know what i'm sayin? i have no idea.

actually, i do have an idea. wanna hear it?

of course you do. the idea is that since the ball doesn't break as much in coors (the players say this; the numbers do too) it's easy to throw strikes there. then the players go on the road and the ball goes all over the place and they don't have as much control.

shakin!this article is an example of how the forces of darkness misinterpret coors field. we must be ever vigilant!

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

By Phil Rogers
Special to ESPN.com

Regrets? Those of us who forecast baseball have had a few.

Watching Anaheim play in the 2002 World Series, it was easy to remember writing about how deep the Angels' pitching staff could be after the offseason additions of Kevin Appier and Aaron Sele, and about noting how well they had played in spring training.

But I can't say I picked them over Oakland and Seattle in the AL West.

Watching Florida play in the 2003 World Series, it was easy to remember how the Marlins had made a run at Bartolo Colon over the winter, believing they were close to winning when no one else did, and how we had seen Ivan Rodriguez have a major impact on winning while in Texas.

But I can't say I even gave Florida a second thought when decided between Atlanta and Philadelphia in the NL East.

The time has come to stop picking the Yankees and Braves every year and start playing hunches. So who's going to be the next team to spring a sneak attack?

The Colorado Rockies are that team.

phil's got nothing to lose here. if the braves or the yankees (or the cubs or the red sox) win, then he was just trying to be interesting. on the other hand, if the rockies come through on their 1.5% chance, then he's a genius. actually, their chance is below 1%.

Kansas City would be a decent call, but the Royals' big surprise was winning 83 games a year ago. Baltimore is obviously going to be improved, but third place must be the Orioles' target. They don't have the pitching to challenge the Yankees and Red Sox.

kansas city would be a horrible call.

The Rockies play in the right division. The NL West has historically been a balanced, deep division. It has had a 97-win team in it in five of the last six seasons. But with age and financial reality diminishing Arizona, Rich Aurilia following Jeff Kent out of San Francisco and Los Angeles thus far adding no hitter more significant than Juan Encarnacion, the standard is dropping.

i better stop or i'll convince myself they'll take the series. regardless, the rocks are third at best.

Ninety wins could get it done in 2004. That's 16 more than the Rockies had in 2003, but GM Dan O'Dowd's latest approach just might bridge that gap.

uh . . . no. and no.

For starters, the Rockies should have won 77 games a year ago, according to Bill James' formula factoring in runs scored and allowed. Assuming the intangible factors of luck and managing balance out, the Rockies can reach 90 with a 13-game improvement in talent.

If Colorado improves and gets lucky, as Florida (+3 in the Pythagorean standings) did a year ago, it could climb above 90 victories. That just might be possible.

Here are five reasons why:

1. There's the obvious thunder in the middle of this lineup. A team that has Todd Helton, Larry Walker, Preston Wilson, Vinny Castilla and Jeromy Burnitz hitting 3-7 is going to score some runs, both at Coors Field and on the road.

The difference between Burnitz and Jay Payton, who he is replacing, is minor. But the Rockies have upgraded in a major way at third base (Castilla), where O'Dowd somehow got tricked into going with Chris Stynes as his primary player a year ago.

And look for a good season from Walker, whose erratic production has been almost of Juan Gonzalez proportions. He has lost a ton of weight (25-30 pounds) and is working out with a strength coach for the first time in his career. If it helps him stay healthy -- he hasn't played 150 games in a season since 1997 -- then the Rockies take a major step toward the first division.

let's start the discussion with the rockies' home/road splits. in 2003, rockies hitters hitters had 2749 ab, 329 bb, 491 k, 183 2b, 26 3b, and 113 hr. that's about a .107 .821 .143 wal con pow. on the road, they got 2769 ab, 290 bb, 643 k, 147 2b, 5 3b, 85 hr. the power numbers jump out, but look at the strikeouts. road wal con pow = .095 .768 .111. the rockies on the road have average power; at home they have above-average power. but contact goes from bad to above average. it's clear that altitude has a bigger effect on contact than power.

there are lots of mitigating factors: hitters seem to do better than we expect once they leave coors field. the pitching numbers are another surprise; we'll run them in a minute. regardless, it's a lot easier to make contact in coors than out of it.

ok. phil's first point is that the lineup will score "some" runs.

do i have to take this seriously? regardless of how much "some" means, the rockies are not a good hitting team unless they lead the league in runs scored. i'm sorry, that's just the way it is. last year, the rockies were 6th in the majors with 853 runs. they didn't even lead in runs at home, finishing second to the boston red sox. on the road, they were a pathetic 26th.

jeromy burnitz is gonna love coors field, but what the rockies need is actual talent. a healthy larry walker is not gonna make the difference between horrible and great. and vinny castilla will be a disappointment. he already makes good contact, so coors won't help him as much. this offense is bad bad bad. what phil's doing here is overstating every possible chance for improvement. it's one of his favorite techniques.

2. The infield has been rebuilt to help a pitching staff heavy on ground-ball pitchers. Royce Clayton remains a vacuum cleaner at shortstop. He and Castilla comprise a massive fielding improvement over the Opening Day lineup a year ago, which had Jose Hernandez at shortstop and Stynes at third.

i'm gonna end this here. phil figures he's established the superiority of the offense, and spends the remaining four points using his favorite technique on the pitchers. the pitching is similar to the hitting: not good enough. and groundball pitchers are not the correct pitchers to get in high altitude. they need velocity. i'll get more into that in a later post. see if you can find the rest of phil's mistakes.

While Hernandez and Stynes actually ranked higher than Clayton and Castilla in range factor in 2003 (Hernandez was 12th among major-league regulars at his position; Stynes was third), this is more of a reflection of the nature of Colorado's pitching staff than their abilities. Ask any scout.

actually, it's more a reflection of the fact that range factor is a bunch of bullshit.

sorry, i couldn't resist.

Clayton and Castilla will not only be more reliable, but will gobble up ground balls. That could be a key to a rebound season for 2002 Rookie of the Year Jason Jennings while helping Aaron Cook establish himself.

Cook, long a minor-league standout, has a 5.69 ERA after his first 160 big-league innings. He sometimes seemed discouraged because of the fielding behind him in 2003, and no wonder. Kevin Brown and Brandon Webb were the only NL starters who threw a higher percentage of ground balls than Cook, who nevertheless saw hitters bat .317 against him.

3. Scott Elarton has finally recovered from shoulder surgery and is ready to assume the potential he showed in 2000, when he won 17 games for Houston. He's been working with pitching guru Bus Campbell, a treaure in the state of Colorado, who helped Roy Halladay turn his career around.

Campbell says that Elarton is ahead of where Halladay was at this time last year. That's scary.

Denny Stark, who was 8-1 with a 3.21 ERA at Coors Field in 2002, is also healthy after a season marred by injuries. The Rockies figure to open the season with Jennings, Stark, Cook and Joe Kennedy as their top four starters.

O'Dowd signed Jeff Fassero (another guy who induces ground balls) with the thought the left-hander can possibly take over the final spot in the rotation. Chin-hui Tsao could factor in for the second half after opening the year at Triple-A.

4. Shawn Chacon, an All-Star before being bothered by tendinitis last year, should have success as the Rockies' closer. Jose Jimenez was adequate a year ago, but Chacon has the potential to turn into a major success, along the lines of Eric Gagne.

Maintaining his velocity has been a problem, as it was with Gagne, but shouldn't be an issue working out of the bullpen. The bullpen around Chacon is a concern, however, as the Rockies have lost both Jimenez and set-up man Justin Speier.

5. Aaron Miles was an astute acquisition who could put up Rookie of the Year numbers as the second baseman. He'll have to play well in spring training to win a battle with veteran Damian Jackson, but don't be surprised if he scores 100-plus runs.

Miles, 27, is a late-bloomer who earned MVP honors in the Double-A Southern League two years ago. Without any advanced shortstops in their system, the White Sox gave him up to take a chance on Juan Uribe.

Miles is an intriguing offensive player who seems to fit Coors Field perfectly. He hits for a high average (.313 the last two years between Double-A and Triple-A) and is hard to strike out. He's only 5-foot-8, but is extremely strong. The ball jumps off his bat. He won't steal a lot of bases, but is an exciting baserunner.

Miles and Clayton, who is likely to hit second, will get challenged by pitchers with Helton, Wilson & Co. behind them. That's exactly the kind of scenario that David Eckstein thrived in two years ago with Anaheim. Miles could follow that example, helping the Rockies down the path traveled by the Angels.

Phil Rogers is the national baseball writer for the Chicago Tribune, which has a Web site at www.chicagosports.com.

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By Peter Gammons
Special to ESPN.com

Jan. 11

This is an eerie time in a red sky morning of an offseason. While most teams have begun humming along with Eddie Vedder ("no matter how cold the winter/there's a spring time ahead"), even after the Vladimir Guerrero bombshell, the oddities of having Greg Maddux and Pudge Rodriguez still out in the marketplace make this a unique January.

That two Hall of Famers are still looking around at this time of year leads to boundless speculation. This weekend, all of a sudden some GMs realized that the Orioles were out on Guerrero and in on Maddux, and that while the Mets were willing to go to three guaranteed years on Guerrero, it wasn't close to enough to getting him away from Anaheim.

does peter gammons type his own stuff? probably. but for some reason i get a kick out of imagining him dictating a column during baseball tonight (tm) commercial breaks, or in-between phone calls to gm's. we can embellish the image by having someone dial for him, too. how many people does he have working for him?

The addition of Vladimir Guerrero shows the Angels are serious about getting back to the Series.

as serious as dan snyder when he bought the redskins? what about the tigers? are they serious? are you implying, mr gammons, that there are teams that aren't serious about winning? what exactly are you saying?

Since the Angels were already between $90 million and $95 million before signing Guerrero, what they do to pare payroll -- trade Ramon Ortiz, Jarrod Washburn or Troy Percival or perhaps an everyday player -- will be fascinating. Rumors of a deal with San Diego have made the rounds, and the Padres have re-opened discussions with the Pirates about Jason Kendall.

and re-closed them. does peter know what "fascinating" means?

There is no question that since Arte Moreno has taken over the Angels, they have become the poster boys of the West Coast. Moreno has taken what was already a team a year off a world championship and added Guerrero, Bartolo Colon, Kelvim Escobar and Jose Guillen, which not only makes them a strong contender, but attractive to Hispanic-American and Mexican cable interests. Not that Anaheim is a sure thing: Seattle is still very good, and the A's rotation of Mark Mulder, Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, Mark Redman and Rich Harden can win anything, anytime, anywhere.

so they're not 100% committed to winning; they're also committed to attracting hispanic-american and mexican cable interests. does anyone know what "poster boys of the west coast" means?

The consensus of opinion among general managers is that the Cubs and the Phillies are approaching the Ides of January as the pre-spring training favorites in the National League, the (surprise, surprise!) Yankees and Red Sox in the American. Of course, considering that the Diamondbacks, Angels and Marlins have won the last three World Series, we all know the worth of pre-spring training power rankings means as much as Gary Hart's 1987 straw poll success.

peter is so smart. isn't peter smart?

ok. i know. quit it. but it's just so easy. in case you're wondering, the cubs will make the playoffs, but the phillies will not. i don't think the marlins will either. i think it'll be braves cubs astros giants. but that's what i say every year.

With Frank McCourt trying to complete his purchase of the Dodgers, the Angels have made a bold strike at the Southern California market. But no matter who gets Maddux and Rodriguez, the Mets and Orioles are two of the teams below the Cubs/Phillies/Yankees/Red Sox radar screen that have at least turned back toward the light.

don't listen to him! he is a servant of darkness! his light is our darkness!

The group:

1. Mets

The Mets because Jim Duquette has taken over and convinced the Wilpons that they're not playing in the Back Pages League, they're in the NL East and that the PR worth of every Cedeno, Vaughn, Sheffield name acquisition gets three times the negative back-page space come August when they play like cement truckers. The Mets are returning to their championship roots, with defense surrounding pitching, which is the way to win in that sinkhole of a stadium which happens to be one of the worst hitters' parks this side of Pac Bell. "How did the Mets win in 1969 and 1986?" Duquette asks, then answers, "with pitching. Shea is a pitchers' park." Now with the start of adding arguably (and statistically) the best defensive center fielder in the game in Mike Cameron in back of the quickness of Kaz Matsui and Jose Reyes in the middle of the infield will make the performances and psyches of Tom Glavine, Al Leiter, Steve Trachsel and Jae Weong Seo a lot better. Guerrero would be a terrific addition, but if they don't get him, they have taken a brutal 95-loss team and significantly improved it by addressing its needs and long-term philosophy, as opposed to PR signings. Remember, this was a last-place team and while there are questions at the end of the rotation, in the pen and in right field, the hope is legitimate.

legitimate. how many wins is that? 70? 75? shea is a pitchers' park because it's hard to hit home runs there. the way to maximize that is to get flyball pitchers and groundball hitters. and i don't think peter is being very nice to cement truckers.

2. Orioles

If the Orioles were to sign Maddux, Pudge Rodriguez and/or Sidney Ponson in addition to Miguel Tejada, Javy Lopez and Rafael Palmeiro they will be one of the most improved teams, albeit in a division so talented that they could well still end up in fourth place. Tejada gives them a building block -- reliable, energetic, productive -- and they have given their great fan base a reason to believe that there is reason to look forward to life after Maryland stops playing hoops. Now, there are a lot of people who believe that this is Peter Angelos' exit strategy -- signing star-quality players to backloaded contracts, get the fans back into Camden Yards, get the $150 million in reparations MLB will have to pay to get the Expos to Washington, then sell for a handsome profit. So what? If you're an Oriole fan and haven't had any reason to believe in anything since their last winning season (1997), then that scenario could begin a six-year run with Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan. Some owners look at Anaheim and Baltimore and see the new owner syndrome and the exit-strategy syndrome that slashed the changing market theories, but, hey, Orioles fans deserve better than they have received the last few years.

what makes orioles fans more deserving than any other fans?

3. Blue Jays

Problem is, the AL East is a lot more than New York and Boston. There's Toronto, which on a $50 million payroll has the makings of a 90-win team, which they hope will be enough to sneak into the tournament and then see what happens, a la Anaheim, Villanova and the Marlins. And the best thing for a Jays fan is that they have one of the best farm systems in the league. J.P. Ricciardi has filled in the rotation spots behind Cy Young Award winner Roy Halladay with Ted Lilly, Pat Hentgen and Miguel Batista, and he got Hentgen and Batista before the Jason Johnsons got $3.5 million. He's added Kerry Ligtenberg, Terry Adams and Justin Speier to a tattered bullpen. Now Toronto has bought time for young pitchers like Dustin McGowan, Jason Arnold and David Bush, and they can wait to see when center fielder Alexis Rios (the star in Puerto Rico) and catcher Guillermo Quiroz are ready.

jp ricciardi is smart. therefore, the following are probable: (1) ted lilly will have continued success; (2) pat hentgen will come back strong from tommy john surgery; and (3) miguel batista's 2003 was for real.

the jays will not sneak into the playoffs in 2004, but they will in 2005.

4. Astros

Sometime soon, Roger Clemens will decide whether or not to join Andy Pettitte, which would give the Astros -- whose starters threw the fewest innings in the National League -- a rotation with Roy Oswalt, Wade Miller and either Tim Redding, Jeriome Robertson, Carlos Hernandez and Brandon Duckworth. Are there concerns about Octavio Dotel replacing Billy Wagner, and Brad Lidge holding up in the setup role? Sure. Are there concerns about the consistency of the offense? Yes. But in a division where the Cubs have a rotation that could win the World Series any year, this is a huge upgrade. The additional innings provided by the starters will save strain on the bullpen.

clemens is a bargain at $5 million. lidge and dotel will be fine. the offense will be fine. richard hidalgo, astro or not, will have a big year:

his pow is back near his 2000 peak, and it's a good bet he'll stay there.

5. Royals

The Royals are trying. Allard Baird and Tony Pena are indefatigable, personally visiting and recruiting players as if they're Bill Self's assistants. They turned the franchise mindset around last year, and by going out and surrounding Carlos Beltran, Mike Sweeney and Angel Berroa with Benito Santiago, Juan Gonzalez, Matt Stairs, Brian Anderson, Scott Sullivan, et al takes them into the season believing they can stay in the Midwest race with the Twins, White Sox and even the Indians, if their pitching comes as it might. There are still serious concerns about the pitching, but if Jeremy Affeldt were allowed to close, he might be the best left-handed reliever in the American League.

And so are the Brewers. No more cosmetic trades and signings to dupe fans into Miller Park. Doug Melvin is an astute talent evaluator. He made a terrific deal for Richie Sexson that provides two left-handed starting pitchers, a first baseman (Lyle Overbay) and an offensive second baseman in Junior Spivey that come July can be spun for more young players. This team needed to strip down and re-grow, and with shortstop J.J. Hardy in this season and Richie Weeks, Prince Fielder, Corey Hart and Dave Krynzel on the immediate horizon, it would be fun again in a couple of years. Why there are two other teams within 90 minutes of Wrigley Field is another matter, entirely.

prince fielderwill kill the major leagues. but the brewers suck, and always will suck.

Diamond Notes

While the Angels clearly want to move Washburn or Ortiz before the start of the season, Boston may not have to move Scott Williamson, who looms as an invaluable setup man for Keith Foulke. The Red Sox are over $120 million presently and will have to pay some luxury tax, but the penalty is far smaller the first time, and with a half-dozen major players potentially gone for 2005, the tax will be a one-shot deal. Kevin Millar is still pushing for Theo Epstein to sign Ryan Dempster, while the club is also talking to left-handed reliever Nick Bierbrodt and Jeremy Giambi, the latter on a minor-league deal as insurance should David Ortiz get hurt.

The Giants signed Brett Tomko cheaply, needing another starter behind Jason Schmidt, Kirk Rueter, Jerome Williams and Dustin Hermanson. Schmidt and closer Robb Nen are scheduled to throw this week, so they will have some idea where they stand before spring training.

Turk Wendell is pondering a lucrative offer to go to Japan and pitch for his former manager, Bobby Valentine.

One name that emerged in Puerto Rico is Jays' minor-league outfielder Simon Pond. After being released by the Indians and Expos, Pond hit .338 at New Haven, then hit 10 homers in Puerto Rico. "He's got one of the best power swings I saw," said one scout who covered that island's winter league.

at 27, simon pond is enjoying the peak of his career: a replacement-level third baseman. he is much better at baseball than i am.

Orlando (El Duque) Hernandez has been throwing for clubs in Miami and is "about 80 percent" according to one GM. There's an interesting spring training invitation, while Cuban refugee Maels Rodriguez is about 10-to-14 days from being ready to air it out for clubs.

i am so excited. really. really really. i am really so excited. i can't wait.

hot stove cheaters
i was looking forward to espn.com's hot stove heaters this year. i was going to use them as a starting point for a discussion on each team's chances in 2004. they have projected lineups, which is something, and they say things i can criticize.

alas, the hot stove heaters, as we know them, are gone. instead, they give us this crap. so i'm gonna have to do it myself. i hope they still run john sickels' minor-league reports.

lots of righties . . . dusty could mix things up a bit by moving walker down, or switching 7 & 8, but those don't seem like things he would do. either way, a right-handed lineup is not as big a problem as some would have you believe, and there are left-handed bats on the bench, which we'll get to later. let's run some walconpows:

throw out 1999, and he has improved every year. will he ever stop? yo, i don't know. turn off the lights, and let's go. . . . they should turn off the lights in wrigley: it was made for day games. day games are better than night games anyway, but that's another story. speed indicates likely further improvement. this is a great move by the cubs. hee seop choi strikes out too much to succeed in the majors:

whoa, eric karros significantly improved his con over the past two years. maybe the cubs knew something when they made that trade with the dodgers. the dodgers clearly didn't. that conpow translates to an average of .259 + speed, which means he will be a very useful pinch-hitter and spot-starter against strikeout pitchers for a team whose regular 1b has contact problems, like the phillies.

Troy Glaus, who missed the final two months of last season with a torn rotator cuff, is back throwing without discomfort.

"I can play a game tomorrow," he said. "Now it's just waiting the five weeks until we leave for spring training." Glaus underwent Lasik eye surgery a few weeks ago, so he's had a busy winter. A free agent after the season, he's a good bet to have a bounce-back year in 2004. Source: Los Angeles Times

weird; his pow has declined as he's gotten older. that's not supposed to happen to young players. could be the injuries. even so, his con has improved markedly. 2004 is glaus's age 28 year, the most common pow peak. expect near career highs in all categories.

cpikula666: you just have to weigh a) odds Aurillia
will bounce back vs b) odds Guillen says injury-free
cpikula666: that would be a much more interesting
analysis
AbishaiAziz: I thought by pointing out the lack of
slugging/power discussion, you were disagreeing with
the assessment that Guillen is better
AbishaiAziz: ahh
cpikula666: no, i was just saying the analysis was
boring
AbishaiAziz: fair enough
cpikula666: i think everyone reading that blog knows
by now that guys who walk more, field better, hit for
just as much power, and are younger are probably a
better investment
AbishaiAziz: also a good point

aurilia's had some fine years---2001, for example---but we're not talking about what he's done, we're talking about what he's gonna do. and what he's gonna do is get out more often. how do we know? the opposite of out percentage is on-base percentage. the first component of obp is walks. with a probable wal over .100, guillen wins that one easily. the next component of obp is hits. let's look at the formula:

let's use .070 .840 .110 for aurilia and .100 .820 .090 for guillen (wal con pow). i think you'll agree that the former set of numbers is optimistic, the latter pessimistic. we'll also assume zero for speed to first.

aurilia's number splits the difference between his last 2 years. guillen's, however, is lower than his career average. some of that can be accounted for by the fact that he's a switch-hitter, and therefore bats left-handed the majority of the time. so his speed score should be higher than zero. the rest is due to our pessimism. so it's really not even close.

somewhere in here i've gotta put that "23" is my abbreviation for doubles plus triples. also i feel compelled to comment that the batting average predictor is also influenced by ground ball to fly ball ratio. those who hit more line drives hit for better average. this can also be seen in the distribution of extra-base hits. a player with a pile of doubles will hit for a better average than a player with a similar pow but more home runs. i've done a lot of work on systematizing this relationship; maybe one day i'll post something about it.
- posted by julien @
1:24 PM